


Of Cotton Candy and Broken Memories

by Bling_Bling_Is_Jonghyun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, Mentioned Kim Minseok | Xiumin, Past!HunHan, SEBAEK IS MAIN SHIP HERE, because why not, cotton candy and shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 06:31:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12126588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bling_Bling_Is_Jonghyun/pseuds/Bling_Bling_Is_Jonghyun
Summary: Sehun has been really distracted lately, and when he finally tells Baekhyun why, things change a lot. Baekhyun wants to help Sehun get over it, and he has an idea of how to do it.





	Of Cotton Candy and Broken Memories

“Sehunnie? Are you okay?” Baekhyun’s small voice invaded the younger’s thoughts. They were sitting on a bench at the pier, enjoying the last day of the fair that had been in town for the past 2 weeks (and the free food), though Sehun seemed very distracted, be it by his own thoughts or by the hundreds of screaming kids in the surrounding area.

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay. I guess I just spaced out again,” Sehun replied slowly, as if not to stutter.

“Are you sure? You’ve been doing that a lot lately. Spacing out like that, I mean. I’m kind of starting to get worried about you. You don’t seem interested in…” Baekhyun trailed off as a small child ran between them. “You don’t seem interested in a lot of things that you used to. You don’t dance as often anymore, you don’t laugh, you don’t want to swim, you don’t want to go out, whether it’s just us going out to eat or if we’re going to visit friends ot anything like that, and now that I think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen you smile even once in the past few days. Are you sure that nothing is wrong? Because if something is wrong, I want to help,” the elder said, tears starting to form in his eyes. Baekhyun was afraid that he had said something or done something to upset the younger sometime in the past week. I have been kind of… extra whiny and needy for attention the past couple of days, I hope that isn’t what upset him, he thought to himself.

“No, no, of course nothing is wrong. Please don’t cry, now,” Sehun said, wrapping his arms around Baekhyun’s slender frame. “I’m sorry, I’ve just been thinking a lot recently and I guess I didn’t realise how much of an effect it was making on you,” he said softly as he wiped away the tears from Baekhyun’s eyes.

“I’m just really worried about you..” Baekhyun said into Sehun’s shirt, leaning into the younger’s touch. 

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. But today, we should have fun. No tears allowed today, you hear me?” Sehun said as he started to tickle Baekhyun’s sides, knowing that it would make the smaller laugh.

“Hey, stop it!!” Baekhyun laughed as he squirmed around, laughing loudly as Sehun attempted to make the tears disappear.

“Then wipe the tears away and come with me. We could get some cotton candy, maybe..” Sehun said meaningfully, hoping that it would trigger a reaction in him. He knew he was right when he saw Baekhyun’s eyes light up with excitement at the mention of one of his favorite foods. 

“Can we really, Sehunnie? Can we?” Baekhyun said, practically bursting with excitement. Sehun chuckled as he grabbed the smaller’s hands and led him through the busy crowds, until they came to the right stand.

Minutes turned into hours as time passed, until it was almost 10 at night and neither of them had realised that they had been there for more than they meant to.

“We should be heading home soon, it’s getting kind of late, don’t you think Baek?” Sehun asked as they walked through the stalls of candy and other foods.

“Yeah, we probably should,” Baekhyun said with a yawn, “but I want to get some more cotton candy to take home with us first.”

“I think you’ve had enough cotton candy for one day,” Sehun said as he picked a piece of cotton candy out of Baekhyun’s pitch-black hair and waving it in front of the elder’s face, before jerking his hand away reflexively as Baekhyun tried to bite it out of his hand.

“See? No more for you,” Sehun said while Baekhyun aggressively crossed his arms and pouted. Sehun sighed and took Baekhyun’s hand, leading him back to their car.

Baekhyun hopped into the driver’s seat, only deciding to drive home instead of Sehun driving home. Baekhyun decided to this when he noticed on the way back that Sehun seemed really upset about something, though he knew that even if he asked the younger if anything was wrong, he would still answer that nothing was wrong and that everything was okay, like he always does. Baekhyun has always said that this was Sehun’s worst habit, lying about his own feelings to protect Baekhyun’s. It always kind of annoyed him, he didn’t care if it hurt him, helping Sehun and making sure he felt okay was always his number one concern. No matter the costs. On the walk back to the car, though, it seemed as if all the feelings from earlier had come back and hit him like a truck, because the whole time they were walking, Sehun didn’t say a word, just kept his head down the whole way and held loosely onto the smaller’s hand.

They both buckled up as Baekhyun started the car, and Sehun laid his seat back so he could look at all the stars in the sky through the open sunroof on the car. It was nice for Sehun to just lay back and relax, so nice that he fell asleep for a little bit as they begun the drive home.  
…………………...

 

“Sehun! Seeeehuuuuuunnn!!” His voice. It had to be. No one else called him like that, no one’s voice sounded that beautiful to Sehun. No one else’s voice was that quiet, but all-consuming at the same time.

“Luhan? Luhan, where are you? Luhan!?” Sehun called out, surrounded by nothing but darkness and trees in all directions, trying to make out where his ex’s voice was coming from. Then something moved in the corner of his eye, and he heard a small rustle of leaves in the underbrush, and as he turned to look to see what the source was, he saw Luhan’s small frame, running in the opposite direction of him

“Please, Luhan, come back! You have no idea how much I miss you, please..”

 

…………………….

 

 

Sehun woke with a start, looking around, slightly disoriented as he made out the face of his boyfriend staring at him from the driver’s seat, worry etched into every crevice on his face. He almost freaked out and told him to look at the road while he was driving, until he realised that Baekhyun had pulled over. In the middle of the city. In the middle of the night.

“Baek? Why are we pulled over?”

“We’re talking. Now. What is wrong with you that you won’t tell me. I don’t care if you’re trying to spare my feelings or anything, tell me what the hell is wrong. You have no idea how out of my mind I am with worry, so please, tell me what’s wrong,” Baekhyun said, practically in tears.

“I--” Sehun started, but he was immediately interrupted by Baekhyun.

“You also need to tell me why you were almost crying in your sleep and calling out ‘please, please’, and why you seemed like you were looking for something while you were sleeping.”

Sehun’s eyes went wide with shock. He didn’t realise that he did some of that in his sleep, too. Sehun saw how concerned Baekhyun was with his feelings and how caught up he was with trying to decipher what was wrong with Sehun, so Sehun had to snap a tough decision. He would tell him everything, and why he had been distracted these past couple days…

 

About 3 years earlier… 

 

“Come on, Sehunnie! If you’re so worried, why don’t you come with me?” Luhan asked, mind already somewhat buzzed. Luhan was making a sad attempt at convincing Sehun to go to a party that some of his friends had invited him to, and Sehun really didn’t want him going now, not when it was snowing and visibility was extremely low. Sehun really didn’t want Luhan out there in this weather, but when he saw the look on Luhan’s face, he knew that there was no stopping him. Luhan was determined to go to this party no matter what. 

“I don’t know, Lulu. It looks pretty bad out there and I’m worried that something could happen to you, plus you’re already kind of drunk, so that is really not going to help. Please rethink this-”

“Wah! You’re just no fun anymore. I’ll just go alone then, party pooper,” Luhan said in his slurred speech, hiccuping after every couple of words. 

“Lu, please don’t go. I don’t want you to get hurt. I… losing you is the last thing on my list of things to do…” Sehun said, almost in tears over the fact that he could possibly lose the love of his life.

Luhan must have caught onto what he was saying in his drunken stupor, because he then pulled out his phone and called someone to come get him and take him to the party.

Better than him driving himself, Sehun thought to himself, still upset that he was going to leave him.

About 5 minutes later, his car pulled up, and Luhan waved goodbye to Sehun as he walked out the door, almost tripping over the doorframe on the way out.

Please, please don’t go… the words hung on Sehun, not wanting to let Luhan go out the door, but he knew it was much too late when he saw the car drive away, Luhan hanging out of the window and hollering in his extremely drunken state. 

Sehun tried many things at home alone, trying to distract himself from all the worry, willing himself to stay away from the phone. He didn’t want to seem too desperate to Luhan, and he was determined not to let the worry in him get the best of him here. He read a couple of books, browsed the internet, even rewatched the last couple of episodes of the show Luhan and Sehun watched together regularly, so he would be completely caught up for the next episode that they watched together. He almost forgot about the worry and sadness that he was feeling… 

Until he got a call on his phone.

Picking up his phone, Sehun looked at the caller ID. As soon as he read that it was Luhan’s phone, he answered faster than he had ever answered the phone for anyone else.

“Luhan? Luhan, is everything okay? Please say that you’re okay,” Sehun said, speaking in a tone so full of worry it was enough to concern someone alien to the situation.

“Sehun… It’s not Luhan,” his friend Jongin’s voice came over the phone, which worried him. Why would he be calling him on Luhan’s phone? Why didn’t he just use his own phone, or did he just lose it? And to add on to his worry, why was Kyungsoo’s crying audible in the background?

“Sehun… God I really don’t want to have to tell you this…” Jongin said, starting to sound choked up. Kyungsoo started to wail in the back, and Jongin had to put his phone down for a split second to comfort the smaller one of the two.

“Jongin? Please, what happened? Why are you crying?” Sehun said, his heart starting to ache with worry.

“When Minseok came to pick Luhan up for the party, you didn’t talk to him or anything, did you?” Jongin said slowly, as if not to trip over his words.

“Oh, Minseok was the one to pick him up? Okay,” Sehun said, starting to get confused, “but anyways, no, I didn’t talk to him, why do you ask?”

“Minseok was far gone out of his mind, drunk, I mean,” Jongin said, starting to cry.

The next words from Jongin pushed Sehun over the edge.

“There was an accident. Minseok went on a road that was so covered in ice, and he lost control and rolled the car 4 times until it stopped in the field next to the road. When police and ambulances found them… they were both dead. They said that the impact had immediately killed both of them. I’m so sorry,” Jongin started to wail, along with Kyungsoo.

Sehun immediately dropped his cell phone, no longer caring about anything. The love of his life, was now dead. Sehun glanced out the window, before dropping to the ground and curling up in a ball. He started out crying, then it turned into wailing, before he finally broke and went all-out hysterical and in tears. He was dead, and he could have stopped it from happening… 

 

… … … 

 

“Oh my god, Sehun… I had no idea. I’m so sorry,” Baekhyun said, almost in tears as his boyfriend told him the story of his previous relationship and how it had ended. He took Sehun’s hands in his, not wanting to let go after hearing this. 

“Just… don’t worry about it. It’s… not your fault it happened and you don’t need to feel responsible for it. If anything I should be mad at myself. I could have stopped him from going out that door, I could have saved his life, if only I weren’t such a coward and so horrible with confrontations--” Sehun said, tearing up.

“No, oh no, no, no, no, no. Sehun, you can’t blame yourself for this, it wasn’t your fault. There’s no way you could have done anything to have caused that,” Baekhyun said, silencing the younger. 

“But--” Sehun started, only stopped by Baekhyun putting a finger over his lips.

“No buts, Sehun. That was in no way your fault. I just wish that you would have told me sooner, so I could have understood why you were sad. Ever since we started this relationship months ago, I noticed that you were always so spaced out and sad, I just never really said anything, because I felt like it would make you even more upset to talk about it. But I think talking about it now might have helped a little bit, since you kept this bottled up inside for lo long. But I still have one question.”

“What’s that?”

“This past week has seemed worse than the past. Is there a specific reason now for it now than any other time?”

Sehun sighed, heart slowly breaking into a million pieces as he said, “It would have been his twenty-sixth birthday tomorrow,” Sehun breathed out.

It was almost as if you could hear Baekhyun’s heart shatter into a thousand tiny shards at those words.

“So… the twentieth?” Baekhyun asked carefully, not wanting to make him even more upset.

“Yes, the twentieth. On his birthday, no matter what, I always sang to him and gave him a bouquet of yellow roses.”

“Can I ask why yellow roses?”

“Because, one day we were talking about flowers when we were deciding what to plant in front of the house, and we were talking about what kind of flowers we would be. I said he would be a yellow rose, because they were not common or widely noticed, but when you did notice them, you would realise that they were some of the most beautiful and unique living things in the world.”

“That’s beautiful, Sehun,” Baekhyun said, voice softening further.

“So was he, Baek. So was he…”

Just then, an idea popped into Baekhyun’s head. He would have to put in a couple calls to some friends when they got home, but he could make this happen. He was determined to do this. For Sehun, it was the least that he could do in an attempt to at least slightly comfort the younger.

“I’m glad you told me that, Sehunnie. It must have been tough to relive that in order to tell me about it, but thank you for being strong for me and telling me. Now let’s go home,” Baekhyun said, turning back forward and starting the engine once again before pulling back onto the street and in the direction of their home.

After about five minutes of driving through the city, they finally pulled into their driveway and got out, walking into their home with heavy hearts.

Baekhyun signalled Sehun to go ahead and go to bed, saying that he had to make a couple of calls and that he would be there when he was finished. Sehun agreed, already being emotionally exhausted from the day and having to relive the worst day of his life.

Baekhyun made sure that Sehun had made his way up the stairs, before turning and going out the door to the porch, the cool April night air refreshing after being on that rollercoaster of emotions. The first call went out to Jongin and Kyungsoo.

“Jongin? Is Kyungsoo with you in the room right now?” Baekhyun asked when Jongin picked up.

“Yeah, Soo’s here with me, why?”

“Then put this on speaker. I need to talk with you both.”

“Alright…… You’re on speaker, now what did you need?”

Baekhyun proceeded to explain his plan to the pair, with them ooh-ing occasionally and aww-ing at random intervals. When Baekhyun finished, Jongin and Kyungsoo were more than happy to help Baekhyun with his master plan. After hanging up with them, he then called Junmyeon and Zitao, then Yifan and Chanyeol, then Yixing and Jongdae, with all of them eager to help Baekhyun with his last-minute but genius idea. Sehun would love this. Baekhyun was going to have to prepare for this emotionally, but it was worth it if the result was Sehun’s happiness. 

The following day, Sehun seemed very quiet. Baekhyun didn’t blame him though, saying to himself, This is nothing compared to what he’ll be like later tonight.

It was about six-thirty in the evening, sun just starting to set, when Baekhyun went to the stairs, calling Sehun down to get ready to go.

“Where are we going? I thought date night was yesterday?”

“Oh, you’ll see. This isn’t a date, but you’ll like this. I just know you will. Everyone else liked this idea, too,” Baekhyun said, a small, mischevious smile appearing on the elder’s face.

“Who’s everyone in this situation, Baek?” Sehun asked suspiciously, squinting his eyes Baekhyun.

“Just hush and follow me,” Baekhyun said, taking his hand and leading the younger out the door and into the car.

When they got in and were buckled, Baekhyun pulled a blindfold out of the center console and handed it to Sehun.

“Baek, wha--”

“Put it on. This is a surprise for you.”

“O...kay?” Sehun said, putting it on slowly, extremely suspicious now. First, Baekhyun was taking late night phone calls and telling him to go on and go to bed, now he was taking him on a blindfolded car ride to who-knows-where?

After about fifteen minutes of driving, long after Sehun gave up on following the paths and many, many curves Baekhyun was taking with his mental map, he felt the car start to slow, and turn onto a gravel road, but not long after being on the gravel, the car came to a stop. Sehun was starting to get afraid, not because he didn’t know where they were, but because he had an incredibly strong feeling he knew where they were, and Sehun really didn’t want to be right about this one thing. Not here, not on this day of all days that they could have came here.

“We’re here. Don’t take off the blindfold, I’ll get you out and lead you to where we’re going, okay? Wait there,” Baekhyun said, grabbing something out of the trunk before opening Sehun’s door and taking his hand, beginning to lead him to the unknown-to-Sehun destination.

Thirty to forty-five seconds of walking hand-in-hand was all it took until they were where they needed to be.

“Okay, Sehunnie, take off the blindfold,” Baekhyun said, squeezing his hand lightly.

When Sehun took it off and his eyes adjusted to the scene surrounding him, he broke down into tears.

They were standing in a courtyard. Yifan, Chanyeol, Yixing, Jongdae, Junmyeon, Zitao, Jongin, and Kyungsoo were all standing there. But that wasn’t what made him cry. What made him cry was the two headstones standing in front of them, one of them reading:

Lu Han  
Born April 20, 1990  
Died December 13, 2014  
Loving boyfriend, brother, and friend to many

The other read:

Kim Minseok  
Born March 26, 1990  
Died December 13, 2014  
Loving brother and friend to all who met him

 

Baekhyun kneeled down to Sehun’s level on the ground, rubbing circles into his back as Sehun continued to cry. He lifted his head to look at Baekhyun, and saw that he was holding something, before realising it was a bouquet of flowers. Roses. Yellow roses, to be exact. He was also holding another bouquet with the same hand, a bouquet of white lilies.

Baekhyun must have noticed this, because he said, “You said Luhan was like your yellow rose, so I got some for him. I also got Minseok some flowers too, so he wouldn’t be left out.” He said this as if he were not just standing in front of their headstones.

“B-Baekhyun,” Sehun stuttered out, “You didn’t have to do this.”

“But I did. I feel like it was something nice to do for you, since you were so upset over this. Plus everyone else,” Baekhyun gestured his hand out in a big sweep to the surrounding others, “was on board with this when I called them last night and proposed this idea to them. I told them that we should at least come out here to tell Luhan happy birthday and give him a gift.”

Placing the flowers in front of the respective headstones, he looked up around at everyone there, and something not even Baekhyun expected happened, but when he caught on, he joined in. But it just made Sehun cry even more than he ever had before.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Luhan, happy birthday to you.”

As they finished singing Luhan happy birthday, Baekhyun pulled something out of his back pocket and put it into Sehun’s hands. Sehun opened his tear-filled eyes to realise that it was a birthday card for Luhan, which everyone had signed already.

“Now you have to sign it, Sehunnie,” Baekhyun said softly, pulling out a pen and handing it to Sehun. 

With shaky hands, Sehun signed the card and carefully placed it in front of Luhan’s headstone. Looking back at the card, he noticed it was laminated, and he just signed it with a Sharpie pen.

When Sehun looked up with a confused look at Baekhyun, it was almost as if the elder had read his mind, because he replied to the confused look with, “I feel like it wouldnt have done so well in the weather for too long on its own, so I had it laminated so it would last longer, and had everyone sign it in Sharpie because it would be harder to get rid of…”

A small ‘thank you’ was all Sehun had time to choke out before bursting into tears again, hugging Baekhyun with all the force in his body, and then everyone else hugged Sehun, hoping to comfort the maknae with their presences.

Luhan would have loved this, Sehun thought to himself when the others surrounded him in their attempt to comfort him, arms around him everywhere, He really would have loved this...


End file.
